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Abstract:
Chapter 3 of FiAE focused largely on assessment as well as how differentiated instruction should be affected by the assessments that a teacher gives. It speaks of three types of assessment, pre, formative, and summative. pre-assessment is used to gauge your student’s current understanding of the content area, whether that be average, far ahead, or behind the expected point. This pre-assessment allows the teacher to tier the future lessons to each group and student ( differentiate.) The second, formative is used to generally test where your students may be at in understanding at a particular point in time. It is a good way to see if your teaching style is actually making an impact on the students, and to alter your style accordingly. The last sort of assessment is summative assessment. You can think of this as the “big” test. The test that encompasses the entire unit and tests their understanding of the “big ideas” and essential questions. Most of the focus was on the importance of pre-assessment however, and how it can be used to avoid re-teaching students particular content and losing their interest, as well as scoping out “previous misconceptions” as Kiera said.
Synthesis:
The general consensus among the class about the chapter was the importance of pre-assessment, and applying what you learned afterward to your curriculum. The book stresses how pre assessment is useless if you do nothing to change your future lesson plans in order to reflect what you learned from the assessment. Some students even brought up the book’s idea that some teachers don’t even from future lesson plans until after the pre-assessment is already.
After the importance of pre-assessment other practicum students thought that it was always important to be straight forward with students. Molly wrote “a student's assignment is not clear and precise that he or she may be more likely to put it off for fear of spending too much time on something that they're not even sure that they're doing correctly.” This is something that rings true, as I am sure all students in here know of. Even since college I have always been able to put my best foot forward when given a clear explanation of what is needed of me, which is something we should all make sure to grant to our future students. Judging from everyone’s blogs, that is a great possibility.
This chapter is focused on assessing student mastery in differentiated instruction. Assessments in the classroom are broken down into Pre-assessments (to get an understanding of what students already know), formative assessments (which assess learning throughout the unit of study), and summative assessments (where students showcase what they have learned throughout the unit of study and can remember). It is often the case that teachers place too much emphasis on summative assessments and not enough on formative (where learning actually takes place). Also, the author believes that many teachers may give a pre-assessment, but then not use the results to differentiate instruction. Some issues with assessments brought up in the chapter are that assessments, especially summative assessments, are based on a single day of work where a student may have just been having a bad day. Regular formative assessments should be better in getting a true idea of how students are learning. Another section of the chapter focused on avoiding “fluff” when differentiating instruction. Fluff can occur when teachers don’t know what to do with a student and let him or her do something that really isn’t useful. When differentiating instruction, care should always be taken to make sure that all students are learning the same skills as every other student. In my own classroom I hope to use pre-assessments as a tool by which to differentiate and listen to students’ actions. Also, I will try to be very straightforward as to what my expectations are in testing. As was said in the chapter, If a student needs to ask if something discussed will be on the test, then that instructor has failed.
Garrett Hodgkins
“ Students achieve more when they have a clear picture of expectations.
This chapter focuses on assessment, particularly how to assess well and how to apply exactly what you may have learned from that assessment. It stresses the importance of having a moldable lesson plan from the data you receive from your pre-assessments, or else the assessments were a waste of time in general. Why do something preparatory if you do not plan on changing when the preparatory idea shows some flaws in the main area? It goes on to explain each different area of testing, how to assess students well, and to avoid any fluff in assessments and classroom, as it doesn’t do anything useful for students. I am glad that I have read this chapter, firstly because it has given me some new ideas on how to work in the classroom. All of the previous chapters we’re helpful, but as can be seen by the mentions of UbD and MI, it was presenting old ideas and solidifying them, not showing me something new. I will want to make sure to assess all of my students, and to work with the information from that assessments. Working to nurture the kids seemingly strong in this particular unit ( possibly developing a peer work, where mastered students assist those less strong in the content area) as well as working with those who are not so strong. The largest importance is that I always derive something from my assessment, and work hardest to use that information to improve all student’s learning.
Kiera Timme
In Chapter 3, ofFair Isn’t Always Equal, the author Rick Wormeli focuses on the issue of assessment. Wormeli begins by discussing one of the key factors that affect a teacher’s ability to effectively assess students: paradigms. Wormeli argues that if we are going to teach students, we must take into account ideas, including misconceptions, about our content area that they bring with them when they enter our classrooms. The author recommends using pre-assessments in order to help the teacher develop an understanding of where each student is at from the start. Pre-assessment is the first part of a three-part assessment process advocated in this chapter. The second step is ongoing formative assessments in order to gage what the student has mastered, and what areas they still need to develop. The last step is a summative assessment given to students at the end of the unit, and should “reflect most, if not all of the essential and enduring knowledge” (Wormeli, p27).
I really loved the idea of doing a pre-assessment. During my time as a mentor at Mt. Blue Middle I worked with a student on his multi-step equations assignment. While he was working on the problem "5x + 2 = 12", he successfully subtracted a two, and rewrote the problem which now read 5x = 10. In order to get the “x” alone he divided by five and stated confidently that this “cancelled” the five. This set an alarm bell off and I asked him what he meant by cancelled. He then proceed to explain that it meant the “five goes away.” Not being satisfied, I asked “what do you mean by that?” He then showed me an additive inverse as proof of his point. Straight away I realized this student has a completely different idea of what was really going on. Although he could solve for “x,” he had an incorrect notion of what it meant to “cancel” in this instance. This experience, and the author’s comments, highlight for me the need for pre-assessments, as well as regular formative assessments. It is most definitely something I intend do in my future classroom.
Sean Falasca
This chapter was no doubt the most in depth I have ever read into properly assessing. There are fifteen different way to performing good assessment. Good assessment advances learning and is integral to instruction, determines what’s worth being assessed, provides even information to the teacher to inform instructional practice, never saved for the end and is ongoing emphasizing formative over summative feedback, is never kept a secret and performed with the end in mind, focuses on developmentally appropriate, enduring, and essential content and skills, authentic to the learning experience, highly valid indicator of what students know and are able to do, reliable, occurs appropriately and doesn’t seem like a test, engages more than one discipline, calls for the use of different tools and products, uses tasks that reveal common misunderstandings, includes those being assessed in its f
orm and criteria, and last but not least is conducted with multiple experiences over time. There are many ways as a teacher to assess students and these assessments are vital in understanding what a students knows and what we need to focus on to help ensure mastery of weak or non existent areas of learning.
To be honest, when I read this chapter I felt a bit overwhelmed with all the knowledge about proper assessment. It makes me feel like there are many ways I can unintentionally asses improperly and get the wrong ideas about my students. However, over time and with the help of my future colleagues I know I will use assessment properly in my classroom. I think it is essential to have to keep improving my curriculum content wise and differentiation wise as well.
Tori Penney
Chapter 3 of FIAE focuses largely on assessment, and discusses many different kinds of assessment and ways to assess, as well as rules to how to assess properly. Wormeli strongly suggests pre-assessment, just as the other books have. We need to test our students to see what they know and already understand, as well as what they have difficulty with, that way we can see what matters the most. I believe a good way for me to use this in my classroom in the beginning of the year is to give students a pre-assessment test, simply a multiple choice test where I ask them general questions about the largest parts of history. These students have been learning U.S. history for 9 or more years, and some of it they have mastered by now. This way I can focus lightly on the mastered events, and focus more deeply on the things that students can’t help but forget. In order to make it not as boring, I can let them do this assignment in another way if they wish, and I will give them credit not on how well they did, but on attempting the assignment. That way the students do not feel as if they have simply been wasting their time and they have nothing to show for it. It would not be a long test, because as Wormeli suggests, pre-assessments should be short. It would just be over general ideas, and then I could give smaller pre-assessments that work along the same lines before each unit. This will be especially helpful my first year, since I won’t know how long certain subjects will take, and I can set more time aside for the subjects that it seems students haven’t yet grasped.
Tess Perry
This chapter brought differentiation and assessment together. By starting a unit with the end goals in mind differentiated instruction can be used successfully. If teachers know where they want students to end up teachers can help students reach that point using whichever methods and processes work best for the students individual needs. To achieve the end goals complete understanding, by the teacher, of what information in standards is necessary. Once the teacher understands it is important to determine what students know about the topic already so the teacher does not re-teach information students already know. This can be done through pre-assessments. Throughout the unit assessment of students progress is necessary for both student and teacher. Necessary to ensure the teacher that students are on the right path and necessary for students to feel confident that they are doing the right thing and are being successful. The final assessment should be genuine and authentic in that it should prove that students have learned useful and applicable information. The use of differentiated instruction throughout lessons and units was outlined in a 12 step process that includes planning, individualizing some aspects of the lesson for certain students, using informal assessment throughout and always reflecting after to look for areas of improvement or which areas went well. I found this chapter helpful in explaining the importance of assessment. It seemed that ideally all students should know what is expected of them from the final assessment. Our goal as teachers is to best prepare students for the final assessment but also to not teach just to test. The integration of differentiated instruction and assessment was clearly outlined in the 12-step process. I was wondering how assessment and differentiated instruction would work together but this chapter clearly showed that the two could work harmoniously.
Jon Delorme
Chapter 3 – Principles of Successful Assessment in the Differentiated Classroom
Rick Wormeli prefaced his book Fair Isn’t Always Equal by saying that the readers should have an open mind and that there will be stuff in here that we’ll disagree with. The beginning of Chapter Three introduces how a differentiated classroom assesses students. One thing that Wormeli proposes is for students to be given the final exam on the first day and allowed to keep it. He argues that the teacher should always have the end goal in mind when teaching. This backwards planning helps weed out what it important and what is not. I remember Dr. Lance Neeper did this last year in SED101. It was interesting to see how much I learned in just 7 weeks when comparing my two identical tests. I just do not know if I would leave the tests in the hands of my students for the whole unit.
Although I do not know if I follow Wormeli on every issue, I do agree that teachers must plan with the end in mind. To do this teachers must first establish their enduring questions that will act as the foundation for future lessons. From these essential understandings teachers create their pre, formative, and summative assessments. From these assessments teachers receive feedback, and that is where true progress can be made. With feedback comes learning and understanding. That is why Wormeli really stresses the importance of concise and timely assessment that captures how a student is doing in the class. Wormeli also says that teachers should allow for 100% make-up on all tests, which is something I am slowly starting to get behind.
Kaitlyn Bowie
The focus of this chapter is the idea of using assessments to gauge the level of students and then to be used later so as to show the students their progress throughout the trimester or semester. These kinds of pre assessments also allow for the teacher to give back feedback early enough that students feel confident about what they know they need to learn right from the start. Teachers can also use these results to decide what needs to be removed from or added to their lesson plans, based on where they show proficiency and weakness. This is also to help prevent needless repetition, which will ultimately disinterest the students and cause them to lose focus, and potentially become a disruptive aspect to the class.
I find this to be a very smart way of designing a classroom around what the students know and need, though there are some aspects of the start of the year test that I do not agree with. While I agree with the assessing aspect, giving them the exact same test at the end of the year feels rather counterproductive to me. We want to encourage the students to develop their thinking process, not just memorize what is on the test and forgo any other information we might give them. While they certainly need to understand the standards of their grade, they also need to begin taking in information that will be pertinent to the following year.
Caroline Murphy
This chapter had a lot of information about assessment to take in. I think the most important thing I learned from it was that there are countless different kinds of assessments meant to serve many different purposes. The three basic types of assessments (pre-, formative, and summative) were really helpful to learn about. I didn’t realize that assessment was something that necessarily took place in the midst of a lesson, but now that I have learned about it it makes a lot of sense. I think using tests results to determine what direction the content should go in is a really good idea, because it keeps the end goal in mind and makes sure that everything is driven towards a purpose. It is really easy to think of assessments as being the end of a teacher’s work for a particular unit, but the work never really ends, and tests and projects are meant to be another step along the way towards successful content mastery. Learning is a constantly evolving process and assessments need to work cooperatively with instruction to achieve that. I think it is also really important to make sure that assessments have real-world applications. One of the most irritating things about high school was when the material we were being tested on didn’t seem to have any real purpose. It made it seem like our time was being wasted, and that is something I really want to look out for when I am a teacher. The chapter’s guidelines for avoiding “fluff” assignments were really helpful for that. In order to keep content goal-oriented, it is important to always remember the end result envisioned by each particular assignment, and the same thing with assessments. Tests and other evalulative projects need to have just as much purpose as the work leading up to them.
Molly Olsen
A large part of a differentiated curriculum's success can come from it's use of assessments. The first is the "pre-assessment", which gauges students understanding before the lesson or subject has been taught. Pre-assessments are so influential on where your curriculum will go, that many teachers won't plan the first few lessons of a unit until the pre-assessments have been completed and analyzed. Then there's the "formative assessment" which can serve as a sort of "en-route checkpoint" as it is put on page 27, so that you can see what is and isn't being absorbed while you still have the time to fix it. Finally is the "summative assessment" which is given at the end of a unit to see if they've met the goals set by the teacher. The assessments help understand your students learning as well as provide an opportunity for feedback during the curriculum, which has been shown to improve student performance.
On page 22 the book discussed the idea that if a student's assignment is not clear and precise that he or she may be more likely to put it off for fear of spending too much time on something that they're not even sure that they're doing correctly. So instead of saying "Study this chapter", saying something like, "Make flashcards of the vocabulary in this chapter," may actually be more helpful to them. Just as a student is less likely to attempt something if they don't fully understand it, I'm less likely to implement new ideas (such as differentiated curriculum) if I don't have a firm understanding of it. Some suggested ways to cope with this include talking to a mentor teacher about the idea or problem, reading a professional journal on the subject, and reflecting on my own in quiet.
Amy Jones
Chapter 3 discusses different assessments and how they should be a tool for evaluating your students; not a test that will tell you who is smarter, but as a way to see where they need to improve and what their strengths are. They are many great assessments one of which I found most useful. The assessment of the Know, Understand, Able to Do (KUD) concept seems to target the key themes that teachers are looking for in their assessments. (KUD) is explained as:
“Know refers to what students have retained from the learning
Understand refers to concepts/relationships/connections students understand as a result of the unit
Do refers to specific skills students can demonstrate” (pg 22)
Finding what is essential in your lessons are key in addressing your ways of assessing your students. Making sure your students understand what they are suppose to “get” out of your lesson will make it easier for them when completing the assessment of any kind. Knowing what your suppose to learn before you learn it is a great way for students to evaluate themselves throughout an entire unit, instead of realizing what’s on the “test” and cramming information that will not benefit them in any way. Pre-assessing is an important habit to pick up. As a teacher knowing what your students know helps you in preparing different activities throughout your unit that will enhance their learning.
Alison Hutchins
This chapter, three, of Fair Isn't Always Equal provided much more in depth information on accessing student understanding and mastery. It describes the three major types of assessment; pre-assessment, formative assessment, and summative assessment. It also describes the uses of all of these. Pre-assessment is a great tool because it gives you an idea of while students are already advanced in this topic, and which may need assistance, formative is mid-content assessment, which can be used to determine the success of the lessons and where you should go from there, and summative, of course, captures the end results of the learning. This is all important to know, as it isn't really obvious to students that all of the testing being done on them is, in fact, for the purpose of bettering their chances of gaining the skills necessary to master the content. In today's classroom, I think assessment is a huge concern. Standardized testing and accountability requirements are making it hard for teachers to cover information in a meaningful way. Because of this, their own assessments are simply catering to the pure memorization of content, rather than actual understanding and obtainment of skills. Finding ways to assess students in ways that promote understanding is really important, as student's need to carry these skills with them through their education and lives, otherwise learning it in the first place is a useless endeavor.
Table of Contents
Abstract:
Chapter 3 of FiAE focused largely on assessment as well as how differentiated instruction should be affected by the assessments that a teacher gives. It speaks of three types of assessment, pre, formative, and summative. pre-assessment is used to gauge your student’s current understanding of the content area, whether that be average, far ahead, or behind the expected point. This pre-assessment allows the teacher to tier the future lessons to each group and student ( differentiate.) The second, formative is used to generally test where your students may be at in understanding at a particular point in time. It is a good way to see if your teaching style is actually making an impact on the students, and to alter your style accordingly. The last sort of assessment is summative assessment. You can think of this as the “big” test. The test that encompasses the entire unit and tests their understanding of the “big ideas” and essential questions. Most of the focus was on the importance of pre-assessment however, and how it can be used to avoid re-teaching students particular content and losing their interest, as well as scoping out “previous misconceptions” as Kiera said.Synthesis:
The general consensus among the class about the chapter was the importance of pre-assessment, and applying what you learned afterward to your curriculum. The book stresses how pre assessment is useless if you do nothing to change your future lesson plans in order to reflect what you learned from the assessment. Some students even brought up the book’s idea that some teachers don’t even from future lesson plans until after the pre-assessment is already.After the importance of pre-assessment other practicum students thought that it was always important to be straight forward with students. Molly wrote “a student's assignment is not clear and precise that he or she may be more likely to put it off for fear of spending too much time on something that they're not even sure that they're doing correctly.” This is something that rings true, as I am sure all students in here know of. Even since college I have always been able to put my best foot forward when given a clear explanation of what is needed of me, which is something we should all make sure to grant to our future students. Judging from everyone’s blogs, that is a great possibility.
Honorable Mention:This video
Frank Makuch
This chapter is focused on assessing student mastery in differentiated instruction. Assessments in the classroom are broken down into Pre-assessments (to get an understanding of what students already know), formative assessments (which assess learning throughout the unit of study), and summative assessments (where students showcase what they have learned throughout the unit of study and can remember). It is often the case that teachers place too much emphasis on summative assessments and not enough on formative (where learning actually takes place). Also, the author believes that many teachers may give a pre-assessment, but then not use the results to differentiate instruction. Some issues with assessments brought up in the chapter are that assessments, especially summative assessments, are based on a single day of work where a student may have just been having a bad day. Regular formative assessments should be better in getting a true idea of how students are learning. Another section of the chapter focused on avoiding “fluff” when differentiating instruction. Fluff can occur when teachers don’t know what to do with a student and let him or her do something that really isn’t useful. When differentiating instruction, care should always be taken to make sure that all students are learning the same skills as every other student. In my own classroom I hope to use pre-assessments as a tool by which to differentiate and listen to students’ actions. Also, I will try to be very straightforward as to what my expectations are in testing. As was said in the chapter, If a student needs to ask if something discussed will be on the test, then that instructor has failed.Garrett Hodgkins
“ Students achieve more when they have a clear picture of expectations.This chapter focuses on assessment, particularly how to assess well and how to apply exactly what you may have learned from that assessment. It stresses the importance of having a moldable lesson plan from the data you receive from your pre-assessments, or else the assessments were a waste of time in general. Why do something preparatory if you do not plan on changing when the preparatory idea shows some flaws in the main area? It goes on to explain each different area of testing, how to assess students well, and to avoid any fluff in assessments and classroom, as it doesn’t do anything useful for students.
I am glad that I have read this chapter, firstly because it has given me some new ideas on how to work in the classroom. All of the previous chapters we’re helpful, but as can be seen by the mentions of UbD and MI, it was presenting old ideas and solidifying them, not showing me something new. I will want to make sure to assess all of my students, and to work with the information from that assessments. Working to nurture the kids seemingly strong in this particular unit ( possibly developing a peer work, where mastered students assist those less strong in the content area) as well as working with those who are not so strong. The largest importance is that I always derive something from my assessment, and work hardest to use that information to improve all student’s learning.
Kiera Timme
In Chapter 3, ofFair Isn’t Always Equal, the author Rick Wormeli focuses on the issue of assessment. Wormeli begins by discussing one of the key factors that affect a teacher’s ability to effectively assess students: paradigms. Wormeli argues that if we are going to teach students, we must take into account ideas, including misconceptions, about our content area that they bring with them when they enter our classrooms. The author recommends using pre-assessments in order to help the teacher develop an understanding of where each student is at from the start. Pre-assessment is the first part of a three-part assessment process advocated in this chapter. The second step is ongoing formative assessments in order to gage what the student has mastered, and what areas they still need to develop. The last step is a summative assessment given to students at the end of the unit, and should “reflect most, if not all of the essential and enduring knowledge” (Wormeli, p27).I really loved the idea of doing a pre-assessment. During my time as a mentor at Mt. Blue Middle I worked with a student on his multi-step equations assignment. While he was working on the problem "5x + 2 = 12", he successfully subtracted a two, and rewrote the problem which now read 5x = 10. In order to get the “x” alone he divided by five and stated confidently that this “cancelled” the five. This set an alarm bell off and I asked him what he meant by cancelled. He then proceed to explain that it meant the “five goes away.” Not being satisfied, I asked “what do you mean by that?” He then showed me an additive inverse as proof of his point. Straight away I realized this student has a completely different idea of what was really going on. Although he could solve for “x,” he had an incorrect notion of what it meant to “cancel” in this instance. This experience, and the author’s comments, highlight for me the need for pre-assessments, as well as regular formative assessments. It is most definitely something I intend do in my future classroom.
Sean Falasca
This chapter was no doubt the most in depth I have ever read into properly assessing. There are fifteen different way to performing good assessment. Good assessment advances learning and is integral to instruction, determines what’s worth being assessed, provides even information to the teacher to inform instructional practice, never saved for the end and is ongoing emphasizing formative over summative feedback, is never kept a secret and performed with the end in mind, focuses on developmentally appropriate, enduring, and essential content and skills, authentic to the learning experience, highly valid indicator of what students know and are able to do, reliable, occurs appropriately and doesn’t seem like a test, engages more than one discipline, calls for the use of different tools and products, uses tasks that reveal common misunderstandings, includes those being assessed in its form and criteria, and last but not least is conducted with multiple experiences over time. There are many ways as a teacher to assess students and these assessments are vital in understanding what a students knows and what we need to focus on to help ensure mastery of weak or non existent areas of learning.
To be honest, when I read this chapter I felt a bit overwhelmed with all the knowledge about proper assessment. It makes me feel like there are many ways I can unintentionally asses improperly and get the wrong ideas about my students. However, over time and with the help of my future colleagues I know I will use assessment properly in my classroom. I think it is essential to have to keep improving my curriculum content wise and differentiation wise as well.
Tori Penney
Chapter 3 of FIAE focuses largely on assessment, and discusses many different kinds of assessment and ways to assess, as well as rules to how to assess properly. Wormeli strongly suggests pre-assessment, just as the other books have. We need to test our students to see what they know and already understand, as well as what they have difficulty with, that way we can see what matters the most. I believe a good way for me to use this in my classroom in the beginning of the year is to give students a pre-assessment test, simply a multiple choice test where I ask them general questions about the largest parts of history. These students have been learning U.S. history for 9 or more years, and some of it they have mastered by now. This way I can focus lightly on the mastered events, and focus more deeply on the things that students can’t help but forget. In order to make it not as boring, I can let them do this assignment in another way if they wish, and I will give them credit not on how well they did, but on attempting the assignment. That way the students do not feel as if they have simply been wasting their time and theyhave nothing to show for it. It would not be a long test, because as Wormeli suggests, pre-assessments should be short. It would just be over general ideas, and then I could give smaller pre-assessments that work along the same lines before each unit. This will be especially helpful my first year, since I won’t know how long certain subjects will take, and I can set more time aside for the subjects that it seems students haven’t yet grasped.
Tess Perry
This chapter brought differentiation and assessment together. By starting a unit with the end goals in mind differentiated instruction can be used successfully. If teachers know where they want students to end up teachers can help students reach that point using whichever methods and processes work best for the students individual needs. To achieve the end goals complete understanding, by the teacher, of what information in standards is necessary. Once the teacher understands it is important to determine what students know about the topic already so the teacher does not re-teach information students already know. This can be done through pre-assessments. Throughout the unit assessment of students progress is necessary for both student and teacher. Necessary to ensure the teacher that students are on the right path and necessary for students to feel confident that they are doing the right thing and are being successful. The final assessment should be genuine and authentic in that it should prove that students have learned useful and applicable information. The use of differentiated instruction throughout lessons and units was outlined in a 12 step process that includes planning, individualizing some aspects of the lesson for certain students, using informal assessment throughout and always reflecting after to look for areas of improvement or which areas went well.
I found this chapter helpful in explaining the importance of assessment. It seemed that ideally all students should know what is expected of them from the final assessment. Our goal as teachers is to best prepare students for the final assessment but also to not teach just to test. The integration of differentiated instruction and assessment was clearly outlined in the 12-step process. I was wondering how assessment and differentiated instruction would work together but this chapter clearly showed that the two could work harmoniously.
Jon Delorme
Chapter 3 – Principles of Successful Assessment in the Differentiated Classroom
Rick Wormeli prefaced his book Fair Isn’t Always Equal by saying that the readers should have an open mind and that there will be stuff in here that we’ll disagree with. The beginning of Chapter Three introduces how a differentiated classroom assesses students. One thing that Wormeli proposes is for students to be given the final exam on the first day and allowed to keep it. He argues that the teacher should always have the end goal in mind when teaching. This backwards planning helps weed out what it important and what is not. I remember Dr. Lance Neeper did this last year in SED101. It was interesting to see how much I learned in just 7 weeks when comparing my two identical tests. I just do not know if I would leave the tests in the hands of my students for the whole unit.
Although I do not know if I follow Wormeli on every issue, I do agree that teachers must plan with the end in mind. To do this teachers must first establish their enduring questions that will act as the foundation for future lessons. From these essential understandings teachers create their pre, formative, and summative assessments. From these assessments teachers receive feedback, and that is where true progress can be made. With feedback comes learning and understanding. That is why Wormeli really stresses the importance of concise and timely assessment that captures how a student is doing in the class. Wormeli also says that teachers should allow for 100% make-up on all tests, which is something I am slowly starting to get behind.
Kaitlyn Bowie
The focus of this chapter is the idea of using assessments to gauge the level of students and then to be used later so as to show the students their progress throughout the trimester or semester. These kinds of pre assessments also allow for the teacher to give back feedback early enough that students feel confident about what they know they need to learn right from the start. Teachers can also use these results to decide what needs to be removed from or added to their lesson plans, based on where they show proficiency and weakness. This is also to help prevent needless repetition, which will ultimately disinterest the students and cause them to lose focus, and potentially become a disruptive aspect to the class.I find this to be a very smart way of designing a classroom around what the students know and need, though there are some aspects of the start of the year test that I do not agree with. While I agree with the assessing aspect, giving them the exact same test at the end of the year feels rather counterproductive to me. We want to encourage the students to develop their thinking process, not just memorize what is on the test and forgo any other information we might give them. While they certainly need to understand the standards of their grade, they also need to begin taking in information that will be pertinent to the following year.
Caroline Murphy
This chapter had a lot of information about assessment to take in. I think the most important thing I learned from it was that there are countless different kinds of assessments meant to serve many different purposes. The three basic types of assessments (pre-, formative, and summative) were really helpful to learn about. I didn’t realize that assessment was something that necessarily took place in the midst of a lesson, but now that I have learned about it it makes a lot of sense. I think using tests results to determine what direction the content should go in is a really good idea, because it keeps the end goal in mind and makes sure that everything is driven towards a purpose. It is really easy to think of assessments as being the end of a teacher’s work for a particular unit, but the work never really ends, and tests and projects are meant to be another step along the way towards successful content mastery. Learning is a constantly evolving process and assessments need to work cooperatively with instruction to achieve that. I think it is also really important to make sure that assessments have real-world applications. One of the most irritating things about high school was when the material we were being tested on didn’t seem to have any real purpose. It made it seem like our time was being wasted, and that is something I really want to look out for when I am a teacher. The chapter’s guidelines for avoiding “fluff” assignments were really helpful for that. In order to keep content goal-oriented, it is important to always remember the end result envisioned by each particular assignment, and the same thing with assessments. Tests and other evalulative projects need to have just as much purpose as the work leading up to them.Molly Olsen
A large part of a differentiated curriculum's success can come from it's use of assessments. The first is the "pre-assessment", which gauges students understanding before the lesson or subject has been taught. Pre-assessments are so influential on where your curriculum will go, that many teachers won't plan the first few lessons of a unit until the pre-assessments have been completed and analyzed. Then there's the "formative assessment" which can serve as a sort of "en-route checkpoint" as it is put on page 27, so that you can see what is and isn't being absorbed while you still have the time to fix it. Finally is the "summative assessment" which is given at the end of a unit to see if they've met the goals set by the teacher. The assessments help understand your students learning as well as provide an opportunity for feedback during the curriculum, which has been shown to improve student performance.On page 22 the book discussed the idea that if a student's assignment is not clear and precise that he or she may be more likely to put it off for fear of spending too much time on something that they're not even sure that they're doing correctly. So instead of saying "Study this chapter", saying something like, "Make flashcards of the vocabulary in this chapter," may actually be more helpful to them. Just as a student is less likely to attempt something if they don't fully understand it, I'm less likely to implement new ideas (such as differentiated curriculum) if I don't have a firm understanding of it. Some suggested ways to cope with this include talking to a mentor teacher about the idea or problem, reading a professional journal on the subject, and reflecting on my own in quiet.
Amy Jones
Chapter 3 discusses different assessments and how they should be a tool for evaluating your students; not a test that will tell you who is smarter, but as a way to see where they need to improve and what their strengths are. They are many great assessments one of which I found most useful. The assessment of the Know, Understand, Able to Do (KUD) concept seems to target the key themes that teachers are looking for in their assessments. (KUD) is explained as:
Finding what is essential in your lessons are key in addressing your ways of assessing your students. Making sure your students understand what they are suppose to “get” out of your lesson will make it easier for them when completing the assessment of any kind. Knowing what your suppose to learn before you learn it is a great way for students to evaluate themselves throughout an entire unit, instead of realizing what’s on the “test” and cramming information that will not benefit them in any way. Pre-assessing is an important habit to pick up. As a teacher knowing what your students know helps you in preparing different activities throughout your unit that will enhance their learning.
Alison Hutchins
This chapter, three, of Fair Isn't Always Equal provided much more in depth information on accessing student understanding and mastery. It describes the three major types of assessment; pre-assessment, formative assessment, and summative assessment. It also describes the uses of all of these. Pre-assessment is a great tool because it gives you an idea of while students are already advanced in this topic, and which may need assistance, formative is mid-content assessment, which can be used to determine the success of the lessons and where you should go from there, and summative, of course, captures the end results of the learning. This is all important to know, as it isn't really obvious to students that all of the testing being done on them is, in fact, for the purpose of bettering their chances of gaining the skills necessary to master the content.In today's classroom, I think assessment is a huge concern. Standardized testing and accountability requirements are making it hard for teachers to cover information in a meaningful way. Because of this, their own assessments are simply catering to the pure memorization of content, rather than actual understanding and obtainment of skills. Finding ways to assess students in ways that promote understanding is really important, as student's need to carry these skills with them through their education and lives, otherwise learning it in the first place is a useless endeavor.